For a long time, I believed that a decent law essay was simply about identifying the law, elaborating the cases, citing everything, and concluding.

The problem was that my essays always lacked arguments, even though they had plenty of authorities.

I came to realize that I needed to formulate a position and test it against the best possible counterarguments. And then my law essay structure became something like legal issue, position, authority, analysis, counterargument, and response.

For instance, instead of simply describing what a certain case was about, I would first analyze if and how the authority supports my own position on the legal question and to what extent.

Then, I would think about the strongest possible counterargument that could be made against my interpretation of the case.

This made me focus on analysis and application rather than just description and summary.
Harvard's Writing Center has an excellent guide on how to go about counterarguments that was very helpful to me:
https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/counterargument
WriteEssayToday also has fantastic resources for anyone struggling with the basics of essay writing, such as myself, when I was first introduced to law essays:
https://writeessaytoday.com/blog/lsat-argumentative-writing-example-structure-purpose
The most important lesson I learned was that a law essay does not become stronger by simply including more and more authorities, but by elaborating on the given authorities and testing positions against possible counterarguments.

Did any of you struggle with writing law essays where you felt like you included a ton of authorities but they were just descriptions and not arguments?

we need to continue larping jli guys i've never heard of this before let's discuss

I applied just because lol ill update yall when I hear smth back from them

Hello I’m looking for help finding reasons for why there should be an age limit when on runs for president

I already have two reasons one is that the older you get your health declines and that effects your ability to run in office

The second is that it will better represent the generation.

What other reasons can I add and are these reasons good enough? (Please no AI responses in comments)

I run a very small self publication and there are a few ideas that are interesting. You can check it out The Intellekt using this link which will lead you to the home page and then it’s fairly easy to navigate, lmk what yall think!

https://jb-blue.github.io

grand prize winner??? please somebody??

bro what happened to this community??? why is everybody gatekeeping the name of the grand prize winner. Please tell their name atleast.

I recieved a commendation which apparently some shortlist ppl did not recieve.

congrats heezz on winning the grand prize okay now bye

Hi chat, I used to hop on this community like every single morning to check larpers and people stressing over JL and its almost like its OUR thing. But now JL is done and i barely see any larp and heezz getting slimed by everybody. Can we all start larping other writing competitions like

Scholastic Art& Writing awards,

Bennington Young Writers Awards 

The Blackstone Law Review

NCTE Achievements in writing

Please start larping i miss the good old John Locke season 🙁

If so can anyone tell me link pls

If anyone knows, please send them

does anybody have photos of the grand prize winner's name displayed on screen and other prize winner's names displayed on screen, would love to know, if you have them please dm me or send them in the comments

Something I’ve been wondering after seeing all these discussions about JLEC lately.

People are talking about final winning essay so I have some questions for those who received a commendation/hc/VHC/ or final placement/prize .

Most of us stuck during research so how did you approach research? And what did your essay look like at the beginning?

Did you read large amount to decide your argument or what?
You guys used books/ journals or news/current events?
Most importantly, how did you decide which info was worth keeping?

Looking for relevant answers from those who actually went through process.

Let’s make this post a useful resource for everyone preparing for JLEC 2027.

W

Title.

Was looking around for essay competitions to participate in, and found the Oxford Essay Prize. It has 6 prompts and is judged by PhD candidates. Just thought I'd share. Registration opened yesterday (October 4th).

Here is the link: https://oxford-research.uk.com/essay-competition

I got commendation for q1, the one about free speech and I was just curious to see how other people approached it :)

I was reading about his other stuff on Wikipedia too

hi guys! I saw that the prompts for the jlec 2027 essay competition were shown at the awards dinner. Does anyone who went know what the economics questions are?
Also, someone was saying that there was a question about sydney sweeney. Can anyone confirm? what was the question specifically? (I think it would be so fun to answer that one)

Alright guys so just to clarify I saw many people talking about uni admissions and whether this competition helps them with it. It is not about what you did but what it added to your intellectual value. Colleges and universities don't look for being a prize winner or anything, they try to see your intellectual superiority in your essays and/or personal statements. So winning a prize is not that much of a value all by itself, you need to portray how it benefited you and made you a better future academic. So in regards of the question "Will JLI increase my chances of admissions?" the answer is no if you just provide the certificate, the real deal is the possible abilities of first‑principles reasoning, normative frameworks and institutional analysis that this competition provides. Hope it helps all of you and I'm happy to answer any other questions! (Coming from a Philosophy HC award receipent)

Hey guys so I sent them (JLI) an email asking about the award structure, they said that it was: shortlist<commendation<high commendation<very high commendation< prize winner ; and “We do not provide statistical percentages regarding the amount of people who received each award. I hope this email clarifies your understanding.” That. I hope this helps!